Sumitomo

It was most interesting to note the serious problems besetting Morrison Knudsen's rail car business ("The Corporate Hero Derailed," Feb. 3). Three years ago, the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission (a predecessor of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority), was severely criticized in front-page media coverage for its selection of Sumitomo Corp. to manufacture rail cars despite a lower bid received from Morrison Knudsen. It was the agency's determination at the time that regardless of its 1% higher price, the Sumitomo offer represented the best value to Los Angeles.

Pushing ahead in its unsolicited pursuit of UFJ Holdings, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. offered to buy the smaller Japanese bank for stock valued at more than $29 billion despite UFJ's agreement to merge with Mitsubishi Tokyo Financial Group Inc. With combined assets of about $1.7 trillion, UFJ and Mitsubishi Tokyo would create the world's largest bank in terms of assets, surpassing U.S.-based Citigroup Inc.'s $1.19 trillion.

How many of my fellow citizens are as scandalized as I am by former Gov. Deukmejian's lobbying for a Japanese firm in competition with American firms? I am thinking of his well-paid efforts on behalf of Sumitomo, the winner of the contract for the Metro Green Line. Sumitomo's victory will by all reports cost us hundreds of American jobs. Where is the public outcry? In the Jan. 3 Times, you quote our former governor as saying, "I haven't been this happy in a long, long time." Are those of us who are sickened by this sort of thing going the way of the dodo?

Sumitomo Corp., Japan's fourth-largest trading company, agreed to buy U.S. pet-supplies maker Hartz Mountain for $365 million to create a global pet-care business. Sumitomo and its U.S. unit agreed to buy all the shares outstanding in JWC Hartz Holdings. The U.S. unit will be the majority owner. Hartz Mountain is based in Secaucus, N.J. Americans spent $32.4 billion on their pets in 2003, including $22.2 million for food and supplies, according to the American Pet Products Manufacturers Assn.

How apropos that one day after General Motors announces that it will be forced to eliminate 74,000 jobs, the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission voted to award Sumitomo Corp. a contract to build trolley cars for the proposed new Green Line. Morrison-Knudsen, an American company, was the loser. Even more galling in this sell-America-down-the-tube ploy was the role played by none other than our former California governor, George Deukmejian, who is now a lobbyist for Sumitomo.

Japanese businessmen and workers benefiting from the Green Line contract will not pay U.S. or California taxes. Neither will American workers, who could have had the same jobs but will cost the taxpayers unemployment benefits. I wonder if the officials who awarded the contract to Sumitomo factored that into the $0.08 million per point difference. Did they care? LAWRENCE VIDOR Long Beach

The $15-million Kajima International headquarters, under construction at Los Angeles Corporate Center in Monterey Park, will showcase for American builders a variety of Japanese-originated products and how they function in a project built to American standards. This first U. S joint-venture project of Kajima International and Sumitomo Corp., located on a three-acre site at 901 Corporate Center Drive, is planned as a five-story structure with 101,000 square feet of rentable space.

Orange County will soon join Dallas in the limelight of a television series. The success of the new series, however, will not be measured in Nielsen ratings but in the yen it can attract; the show is targeted for Japanese businessmen. The three-hour, three-part series portraying Orange County's business and investment potential is scheduled to air early this summer in Los Angeles on Channel 18's Japan News Magazine and later on two major networks in Japan.

Sumitomo Bank of California said Wednesday it is conducting an "in-depth" review of its Latino and African American advertising services. The review is slated to be completed before the end of the year. The company said it would focus on "agency strategic planning skills, advertising effectiveness and creativity, and community involvement in California." Torrance-based Saatchi & Saatchi Pacific handles general market advertising for Sumitomo, the nation's sixth-largest bank with $5.

Mayor Tom Bradley's and Mas Fukai's (an aide to Supervisor Kenny Hahn) complaints that racism and Japan-bashing played a major role in the loss of Sumitomo's Green Line contract are an attempt to divert public attention away from the real villains in this sorry fiasco: U.S. politicians and bureaucrats who have consistently sought to degrade American competitive standing through harmful and idiotic trade policies. DAVID M. THEISS Lakewood

Sumitomo Corp. of America said it sold its U.S. equipment-financing unit to General Electric Capital Corp., the world's biggest finance company, for an undisclosed amount to raise funds for more profitable businesses. The Norwalk, Conn.-based finance unit, called Phoenixcor Inc., has almost $1 billion in assets and is one of the 60 biggest U.S. lenders to businesses buying equipment. It has 16 offices across the country and will become part of GE Capital's commercial-equipment financing unit.

Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. formed a $1-billion alliance with Japan's Sumitomo Rubber Industries Ltd. in which North America's biggest tire maker would acquire 10% of Sumitomo and take control of its U.S. and European businesses, people familiar with the transaction said. Sumitomo Rubber spokesman Katsuhiro Katafuchi said the companies may announce the agreement today. Goodyear declined to comment.

Investigators with the Labor Department have found that the former owners of Sumitomo Bank of California failed to recruit African Americans for the lending institution's high-level jobs and discriminated against both black and Latino employees by paying them less than other workers. Federal officials said Thursday that they believe the pay discrimination took place in some, but not all, job categories. They said the discrimination affected at most 250 African American and Latino employees.

Sumitomo Corp. agreed Friday to pay $42.5 million to settle a California lawsuit, the last class-action claim stemming from one of the largest commodity trading scandals ever. Sumitomo, Japan's third-largest trading company, said it will settle a suit filed in July 1996 on behalf of construction companies and contractors that bought copper products between Jan. 1, 1993, and July 1, 1996, largely construction companies and contractors who buy copper pipe.

Sumitomo Corp. is in talks to settle a class-action lawsuit filed in California, another step in the company's move to wrap up one of the biggest commodity trading scandals ever. "The main parties are in ongoing discussions, but there are a few outstanding issues to be settled," said Larry Shucharow, lead attorney for the class-action suit. Sumitomo said Wednesday that it will pay $99 million to U.S.

Sumitomo Corp. said Wednesday that it will pay $99 million to U.S. copper traders, settling six class-action lawsuits in one of the biggest commodity trading scandals ever. The suits were filed two years ago in federal court in New York after a series of unauthorized transactions by Sumitomo's chief copper trader. The company was left with more than $2 billion in losses when the trades collapsed. Another suit is pending in California.

Sumitomo Corp. has donated $10,000 to the Japanese Business Assn. of Southern California's scholarship fund for Southland students while they study a year in Japan, and $10,000 to the UCLA International Student Center. The donations by the Sumitomo Corp. of America were made in lieu of having a company reception to welcome Akira Nakagawa, who will succeed senior vice president Haruhiko Uchida as general manager of the firm's Los Angeles office.

Sumitomo Bank of California shareholders approved a $546-million takeover by Zions Bancorp of Salt Lake City, according to the San Francisco-based unit of Japan's Sumitomo Bank Ltd. Zions agreed in March to buy Sumitomo's shares for $38.25 each. It also agreed to pay $32.26 a share for the Japanese parent's 85% stake. The transaction was controversial when it was announced in March because Zions was to buy the troubled bank for 24% less than its market price.

Sumitomo Bank Ltd. and Daiwa Securities Co.--Japan's second-largest bank and brokerage--may combine their capital market and corporate client units in a joint venture, a Sumitomo Bank official said. The companies will meet the press today to discuss their plans, a Daiwa Securities spokesman said. The directors of Osaka-based Sumitomo Bank have not made a formal decision on the joint venture and will discuss it at a meeting today, the bank official said.